Out of the woods: a mum’s experience with postnatal depression

Another mum once told me that you’re out of the woods when your youngest hits the age of three and it’s plain sailing until they enter the wilderness of the teenage years. Being heavily pregnant on my third child when she told me this, as well as having an unruly toddler and a three-year-old, I felt like thumping this mum of older kids with her designer handbag.

 

I felt utterly despondent at the thought of facing at least three more years of disorganised chaos, sleepless nights and baby brain; of feeding and winding; of nappy rash and potty training; of constant cleaning up and an endless mountain of laundry. I was already exhausted and mentally drained after having my first two babies so close together and unknown to myself, had been suffering from postnatal depression since the birth of The Bruiser (then two).

 

My first two didn’t sleep through the night until they were two years old and their new baby sister was to follow suit. I wondered how I could possibly drag myself through three more years of full-blown baby rearing, while at the same time beating myself up with guilt because I was not enjoying these precious baby years.

 

If I had a euro for every time some well meaning older mother or grandmother sagely advised me to “enjoy them while they’re young, the years go by very quickly,” I would have accumulated a nice few bob; but to a mother desperately struggling to keep her head above water every day, those words only added to the heavy weight of guilt I was already carrying around with me.

 

Having suffered from depression since I was a teenager and written articles on postnatal depression in the past, I should have recognised the signs, but I simply assumed it was like this for every new mum. Deep down, I worried that even though I adored my babies and they adored me, maybe I wasn’t as good at this mothering racket as I had always thought I would be.

 

This was different to ‘regular’ depression where I felt down for weeks and months at a time. Not every day was bad; just a lot of them.

 

Then one day, it hit me out of the blue. I googled postnatal depression and up popped the Post Natal Depression Ireland website. Reading through the list of symptoms, I realised I had almost every one. One quote on the website really struck a chord with me at the time: “Sometimes it feels like life is not worth living, at a time when it should be at its most joyous.”

 

That was exactly how I felt. Here I was with two beautiful, healthy babies and another one on the way when lots of people I knew were struggling to get pregnant and instead of enjoying life with them, I found myself at the lowest point of my life.

 

My GP confirmed my self-diagnosis but instead of being upset by this, I felt a profound sense of relief. I was relieved that the way I had been feeling for so long was not a normal part of motherhood and that I was not going to have to endure months and years of dragging myself through each day just to make it to bedtime.

 

Long story short, I’m glad now that I didn’t hit that woman with my umbrella because she was right: it does get easier. Princess Firstborn is in Senior Infants now and The Bruiser is happily settled in playschool. Baba is not three until next August and is as daft as a brush, but when the Christmas holidays ended this year, I wasn’t pulling my hair out and counting down the minutes until the childminder returned and we all got back to the normal routine of work and school.

 

The mayhem has got less manic, although The Bruiser and Baba did spend half the holidays fighting over a new toilet plunger while ignoring all their Santa toys. The kids are getting more independent and more importantly, their mum is now enjoying all those precious moments.

Michelle McDonagh is a freelance journalist working from Blarney, Co Cork. She’s a mum of three children aged 2, 4 and 5, and a firm believer in 'good enough' parenting, bribery and the healing powers of chocolate.